THE ART OF ‘THE DNF’| WHOA – A CASSIE CLARE BOOK I DIDN’T FINISH X2(!!?)

This is a post where I try and sound like an accomlished person and actually try and sound like i know what im saying.

I know. whoa what a title. I didn’t finish a Cassie Clare book?? BUT THAT’S FORBIDDEN!! But before i give you all the juicy* details**

Okay, so incase you weren’t so sure, DNF stands for “DID NOT FINISH”. I know, the hight of being “technical”. BASICALLY BOOKWORMS ARE FULL OF ABBREVIATIONS, because we’re supre lazy, that no one understands. Like: ABTILSMID: a book that i love so much i die. Yep, as you can tell. . . I definitely didn’t just make that one up

*don’t even know why that is in italics. DON’T MIND MEEEEEE. **Mwhaha I’m actually incredibly mean to you guys. #bullying #torture *gets out knives… I DONT KNOW WHERE THIS IS GOING. .. ok bye.

Sow when I didn’t blog, I didn’t give up on so many books. Purely because I was just reading contemporaries and not really reading as much as I do now (which still isn’t a lot). But when I stared getting into the book community and I actually learnt what DNF stands for, it was painted in such a bad light and like this super bad MEANIE VILLAIN to be avoided.

And, dispite the fact that these books got me into reading, and I ADORE her writing so much, I still haven’t actually enjoyed and devoured EVERY. SINGLE. BOOK. that she’s written.

I even DNF’ed a couple. . .

I KNOW!!

Let’s take a look at the books I didn’t finish…

And I LOVE Cassie Clare’s writing.And the world.Ahh I just love these books… It doesnt mean that these are bad books??? It just means that I didnt really enjot it what I had read, and I wasnt really engaded??? And that’s sad, but it’s not a bad thing????

But the fact that I didn’t enjoy them that doesnt mean i’ll never go back to these books ever again. I acutally am planning on rereading them pretty soon nad finally finishing them.

I’ve DNF’ed a few books. . . Such as the first two Percy Jackson books… which I then picked up again andACTUALLY LIKED.

Sooo.. DNF’ing a bad thing?? All my time here blogging DNF’ing has been painted as some SUPER BADIE that everyone needs to avoid, and therefore everyone needs to avoid the book that you DNF’ed or any book that anyone DNF’ed ever.

And loads of people may not agree with me on this… BUT I dont belive that Dnf’ing is a bad thing, especialy if you aren’t agreeing with a book. I mean WHY would you make yourself sit through something that you didn’t like?? It’s like acciendentily switching on the classical music channel and not bothering to switch over to something else even though you’re not enjoying it. Exactly, you wouldn’t just listen to classical until that station finished. YOU’D SWTICH IT OFF.

It’s the same thing with DNF’ing. All it means is that you didn’t like the book and it’s sad, but IT’S NOT SOME TERRIBLE THING.

And some people really do take offence when someone DNF’s a book that they loved, but really…. what does it matter?????????

What you can do when you DNF:

Leave it a little while, YOU MIGHT COME BACK TO IT.

If you do, fab.

If you don’t end up reading it again, maybe try reading it.

If you can’t get into it again, or you don’t even want to try, then you couldddd (A) sell it online (B) give it to a friend (C) give it to a charity shop (D) burn it to cinders (E) let it sit there and rot and never think of it again.

And finally . . . we’ve readched my point: What I’m trying to say is that don’t think negatively on the books that you DNF’ed!!!! IT DOESNT MATTER!!

I try not to but there are just some cases where I absolutely cannot get into the book or continue reading. I tried reading Abundance of Katherines a ZILLION times and I have come to the conclusion that reading past page 30 is an impossible task. I also DNF’ed those 2 Cassie books–I went through and read the stories that sounded good and only read those lol. However, I always try to go back to read something DNF’ed the first time and sometimes it has worked miraculously. The Darkest Minds is one of my favorite books now and I began reading it, stopped, and it laid on my shelf for a year!!

Okayyyy, I AM SOOO SORRY. I AM SOO LATE.. 😭😭😭 But I was ILL. 😣😢 That counts as a valid excuse, right? 😅

ANYWAYYY….

So, in the beginning when you explain what DNF means, I thought it was specifically for me. LMAO. 😂😂 BUT FORTUNATELY, this is the one term I knew. 😂😂😂

AND I HATE having to DNF a book. Just recently I had to leave a poetry anthology midway. I hated it. I wanted to go on but I JUST COULDN’T. And ughhhh…..I FELT GUILTY FOR TWO hours. 😂😂 But you are quite right in suggesting leaving the book for a while and then returning to it with fresh eyes. Maybe I can start doing that. But gee! I WROTE SUCH A BAD REVIEW on Netgalley for that one. 😂😂 Hope the author never sees it. 😂😂😂

i don’t think DNF’ing books is bad thing either. i mean there are a lot of books out there and it’s a matter of preference you can’t make yourself read something you HATE! you may end up really hating the author and not give his\her other books a chance!.

I think that I only DNF’d one book since I started my blog; before that? No clue; I never paid attention to it because, like you said, you don’t even KNOW there’s a term for it and you simply read what you want to. Where as a blogger, you’ll often pick up a book you maybe wouldn’t otherwise. Let’s admit it, that makes the chance of DNF’ing bigger than it should be.
Also, I simply like giving indie authors a chance when they send me a reviewing request. And THAT’s where I DNF’d that one book. I still remember why as well, because I tried so hard to get into it and read more, but.. Nope. *Let’s just say that it was a male POV that.. had certain views on women I couldn’t agree with and got on my nerves an awful lot.*
Apart from that, I also have the 100 pages-rule. If I can’t get into a book by then, I can DNF without feeling guilty. For some reason, it works! Every time I struggled with a book, I ended up being into it by p. 100 – sometimes even completely forgetting that I was contemplating DNF’ing it in the first place, hoorah.
Anyway; since that one book I’m also a bit pickier towards reviewing requests so I can avoid situations like that from now on, haha.

Yes, sounds like a wise choice!! I think I’m going to have to adopt the 100 pages no guilt thing because for some reason I always feel a bit guilty even tho I really shouldn’t!!! Irrrghhh that male POV Sounds dreadful it can die. Ahaha. Yes I think that blogging has really made me more conscious of DNFing and how much-or how little-I DNF!

I’ve heard of more and more people who integrate that rule in their reading and, as far as I can tell, it has helped them already. 🙂
And if we have to DNF, at least we gave it a shot? Right?
It was really dreadful and annoying and.. ugh. I’ll probably remember it for a while, haha.
Same!

I HAVEN’T READ ANY OF CASSIE CLARE’S BOOKS. KILL ME NOW. actually don’ t because like i need to read them.
I am…well…99% against DNF-ing! In my opinion, i just…sometimes a book GETS SO MUCH BETTER TOWARDS THE ENDING and then I END UP LOVING IT! I do DNF! ObVIOUSLY. i Dnf-ed a book a month ago! Sometimes you CANNOT GET INTO A BOOK and that’s okay. But, what I don’t like is people DNFing 56789 books a month. GIVE BOOKS A CHANCE. Sometimes YOU CANNOT enjoy a book and that happens to me! but like…I don’t beleive in being so um…casual in DNFing?

Great post, Lu!! I think that DNFing is sooooo much better than making yourself sit through a book that you don’t like. We have other books to read, why waste time on something that doesn’t interest us?? BUT. It can also take a sharp turn at the end, and you may have ended up liking it had you kept reading. I don’t DNF on purpose a lot anyways ahahah. (I mainly DNF when my library books are due and I haven’t finished them.)

Ooh i can understand dnf’ing The Bane Chronicles- though i pushed myself through it, i did find it a bit boring. But you should give Tales of the Shadowhunter Academy another go, a few of those stories were so so amazing!!! hopefully you’ll like it this time!

I have no problems DNF’ing books, why should I waste my time reading something that I’m not enjoying or not connecting with. I also write reviews for books that I DNF’ed so others know why I DNF’ed them.

I have no issues DNF’ing books, I even write reviews for books that I DNF’ed so other people know why I DNF’ed them as a courtesy. I read the entire Percy Jackson series and then Heroes of Olympus, and had issues with them.

With the ADHD rep, I felt that it could have been handled better, and was more prominent. My biggest issue with the mythology is in Sea of Monsters, it’s a dumbed down, over ficitonalized account of The Argonautica. The Argonautica is the only Hellenistic epic that survived from Ancient Greece, it’s an important piece of Ancient Greek literary history.

Oh right I didn’t even know about the missing Mythology. And yes, the mythology was pretty lacking in that book! It was just about a cyclops and included hardly anything else. Ahhh I didn’t know about the rep issues :(((

I try not to DNF, because personally, I don’t like leaving things uncompleted. However, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it if someone wants to DNF something. And once and a while, I will DNF something, usually only if I’m really HATING it, or occasionally if I’m just feeling really busy. I don’t really like doing it, but some books I just don’t feel like finishing.

Yes!!! And the one about why Magnus was banned from Peru, which I believe was the first or second novella in the collection, was so upsetting! I hated that one, and I feel that made me want to read the book even less.

Well matey I used to finish every book I read. And ended up reading lots of things I didn’t like and wasting me precious reading time. Then I met the first mate who thought that was insane. Why make meself grumpy and unsatisfied. Blogging actually helped me finally accept the DNF or abandon ship as I like to call it. I also have books that I finish (for various reasons) and don’t like that I make walk the plank. Usually this happens when I try a new author or when I branch out and try something that is slightly outside me usual fare. I find awesome treasure sometimes. Sometimes it’s just fake gold. I love reading DNF posts and negative reviews because sometimes a hyped book has themes or elements that I personally just don’t like. So I don’t read that one and read something else on me long ports for plunder list. I also review 99.99999% of books I read because I like keeping a log of me reading thoughts. So that means that me DNF books and non-popular opinions are on me log for everyone to read. Some people adore steamy romance novels. I don’t. And that’s okay. Whatever floats yer boat! Reading is supposed to be enjoyable. So that’s me two bits. Awesome post.
x The Captain

Thank you so much for your lovely comment!! I agree with everything that you said, whyyyy read a book that you aren’t enjoying??? it makes no sense aha. And me too, I review all the books that I read for the same reason!!